Wooing Cadie McCaffrey

by Bethany Turner

  “I really shouldn’t be the one to tell you any of this, Will.”

  “I know!” he shouted. “But she won’t talk to me! She began completely icing me out as soon as we . . .” He groaned. “You know. And if it’s all about what happened that night, then I am prepared to continue groveling and do whatever else it takes, but I just can’t believe that she would throw everything away over one mistake.”

  She took a deep breath and leaned closer to him, resting her elbows on the desk. “Can I ask you something?” After he nodded, she gently asked, “Where did you think the relationship was heading?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s just that you say you were committed to loving her forever, and I believe that. But usually there is a next step. For some couples that may be sleeping together or living together, but that wasn’t part of the plan for you guys—regardless of what actually happened—so what was supposed to be next?”

  “Marriage.” His tone made it evident that what he was actually saying was, “Marriage. Duh.”

  “Seriously?” Darby asked.

  “Of course.”

  “She said you never even hinted—”

  “Why would I hint?” Will thought back over various conversations he and Cadie had had through the years and began feeling even more confident in the stance he was taking against what Darby was saying. “I asked strategic questions and got the information I needed, in order to make informed decisions.”

  “So you treated it like—”

  “Research.” He held up the lined yellow paper she’d given him. “Like you said, it’s what I do.”

  She smiled and shook her head and then handed him the rest of what she’d written. “That should get you started.”

  “What’s this?”

  She stood and returned the legal pad and pen to the desk. “In my opinion, it’s the key to getting her back.”

  “It’s just a list of movies.” He skimmed through all of the titles and felt like adding a bit of additional commentary. It was a list of horrible, cheesy, ludicrously plotted romance movies. “What in the world am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Like I said, Will, you two have some major issues to work out. Romance isn’t going to just make all of the problems go away. But I think it’s a really good place to start.”

  13

  After a Day at the Lab

  Whitaker, when I said we should get a drink sometime, this is not what I had in mind,” Kevin said as he looked up and down 109th Street in the dark. “You actually live here?”

  Will unlatched the iron gate in front of the stoop of his six-story walk-up. “Oh, come on, Kev. It’s not that bad. It’s a great old pre-war building—”

  “Which war?” Ellis interrupted him. “The Swiss Peasant War of 1653?” He chuckled at his own joke until he realized Kevin and Will were staring at him. “What? Unlike you uneducated jocks, I read and am continually on a quest to pursue the betterment of my mind.”

  Will laughed while Kevin just changed the subject.

  “You really make that commute every day?”

  “Every single day. It’s not so bad, actually. We’d have made it a lot sooner if you two prima donnas hadn’t insisted upon taking a cab. The subway is much faster.” Will unlocked the door and held it open for them to walk in behind him. “When I was in grad school, this place was great. I could walk to campus in three minutes.”

  “Hang on,” Ellis said as they entered the building. “I thought you went to grad school at Columbia.”

  “I did.”

  Will almost had the door closed, but Ellis stopped it with his hand and stepped back out onto the front stoop. He looked up and down 109th Street as Kevin had a moment prior, except with slightly more confusion etched on his face.

  “Where are we, man?” he asked. “Seriously, where are we? I thought Columbia was on the Upper West Side.”

  “It is,” Will replied with a laugh as he ushered Ellis back in once again and shut the door behind him. “I live on the Upper West Side.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Ellis argued, shaking his head. “I live on the Upper West Side. This is, like, Harlem, man.”

  “Not for another block or two.” Will motioned that they should follow him and began bounding up the stairs.

  “No elevator?” Kevin asked, and Will could almost hear the exasperated expressions taking place behind him.

  “No elevator. But for two big, tough, legendary athletes, I didn’t think a few stairs would be a problem.”

  Kevin pushed him forward, while Ellis just took a deep breath and grumbled as they began their ascent.

  “Tell me,” Kevin began, alternating the bottle of champagne he carried from one hand to the other. “Why are we coming to a party at your apartment in Morningside Heights—”

  “Which is just a fancy way to say, ‘Might as well be Harlem,’” Ellis huffed as they rounded the corner to begin climbing the third flight.

  “When we literally just left our offices downtown,” Kevin continued. “I know you aren’t much of a party guy, Whitaker, but for your information, there are a few bars in Lower Manhattan. On top of that, downtown is so close to Tribeca, where I choose to live because of its proximity to our aforementioned, recently departed offices . . .”

  “Don’t dwell on the past, Swoosh,” Ellis said from a flight below them. “That was about two thousand blocks ago.”

  “My roommate is having a thing,” Will replied with a shrug.

  Both of his friends stopped in their tracks and looked up at him incredulously.

  “I’m sorry,” Kevin spoke up. “Your roommate is having a thing? What do you mean, your roommate is having a thing?”

  Will sighed, and after quickly darting his eyes toward the door of his apartment, which they were finally approaching, he ran down a few steps to stand between Kevin and Ellis.

  “He’s an actor,” he explained discreetly. “This morning he was going on about this party he’s having tonight, to celebrate an audition he had today.”

  “He planned a party to celebrate the audition before he knew if he would get the part?” Ellis asked.

  “Exactly,” Will continued. “I found it really annoying and pretentious, and this guy . . . I mean, he’s nice enough, I guess, but between him being out all night, usually, and getting his beauty sleep, I guess, I hardly ever see him. Pretty decent roommate, all in all. But I was just so annoyed by the ‘celebrate the journey’ crap he was going on about this morning, and I started to feel bad because I think he really was making an attempt to reach out and be nice to me.”

  “We were making an attempt to reach out and be nice to you,” Kevin said. “And this is how you thank us?”

  “We’ll spend five minutes in there and then we’ll head up to the roof with that champagne. I get to look like a decent roommate, we get to hang out, I get to tell you about the new plan to get Cadie back, and you guys get to experience a new part of Manhattan. Everyone wins.”

  Ellis completed the rest of the steps to catch up, and then, still out of breath, stood next to Will and said, “You win, man. Swoosh and I don’t win.”

  Will wasn’t looking forward to the noise and the drinking and everyone bumping into each other in the tiny apartment. And he definitely wasn’t looking forward to meeting all of Sam’s friends, who probably all had abs that made Gerard Butler in 300 look like Steve Guttenberg in Three Men and a Baby. But he’d taken Darby’s words to heart, though she probably hadn’t meant for him to apply them anywhere apart from his relationship with Cadie. He was unobservant and clueless, and he needed to put in more effort with people.

  Also, he had to research romance in the movies. Who better to help him with that than a bunch of out-of-work actors?

  He glanced back at Kevin and Ellis standing behind him, and he couldn’t contain his laughter. The two giant men looked at each other before looking back at Will in confusion.

  “What’s so funny?” Kevin asked.

  “My twenty
something actor roommate invited me to a party with his cool actor friends, and I brought you two! You’re both old enough to be his father, and I’m beginning to wonder if this was a mistake, simply because I had an early morning and I’d like to go to bed.” His laughter died down to a reflective chuckle. “Sorry, guys. I just feel like I aged twenty years this week.”

  Ellis placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man, this party might actually be the best thing for you. You were a star on the rise, and at that press conference, you exploded!”

  “Don’t stars die when they explode?” Kevin interjected.

  Ellis ignored him. “And still all you can think about is Cadie. I get that. We get that, don’t we, Swoosh?”

  “Would I be here otherwise?” he answered.

  Will smiled at his friends, amazed as always at their depth and compassion—no matter how chill and unaffected they usually appeared to be. Since his confession that he and Cadie had broken up, not one word had been said about it—or about her. But from Ellis going to The Bench on Will’s behalf, to Kevin having lunch catered for The Daily Dribble team, to Anna, the new girl, sitting in Cadie’s chair, representing the accounting department at the daily staff meeting, he knew his friends had been finding ways to care for him.

  Although Anna was probably in the meeting because Cadie didn’t want to see you.

  The thought entered his head, and he knew it was probably the accurate explanation. He preferred his first theory.

  “Yep,” Ellis continued with a nod, growing more confident in his declaration. “I really think this party might be the best thing for you. You can get your mind off things, flirt with some actresses—”

  “Oh, I’m not ready to—”

  “Flirting won’t hurt you, man. At the very least, you can enjoy them flirting with you, and you can just relax and unwind for a while. You deserve that. You’ve exploded, my friend. Now your star is going to continue to burn brightly for a very long time.”

  “You really don’t know how astronomy works, do you, Ellis?” Kevin asked.

  “I’m not much of a science guy, so sue me.”

  “Oh yeah, that reminds me,” Will spoke up. “My roommate thinks I work in a lab.”

  “A lab?” Kevin laughed. “Why in the world does he think that?”

  “Because I work in research.”

  Ellis groaned and laughed simultaneously. “Okay, man, let’s go. I’m going to enjoy this.”

  Will smiled and turned his key in the lock, and as they entered, his senses were assaulted by the overwhelming . . . silence.

  “That’s weird,” Will muttered with a quick glance behind him to shrug in confusion. He looked at his watch—9:07. He didn’t know much about actors and their wild parties, but surely they didn’t start after 9:00, did they? He stepped to the side so Kevin and Ellis could enter fully, and then he shut the door behind them. “Sam? You home?”

  “Up here,” Sam called down from the second floor.

  Ellis took a few more steps inside the narrow entryway and craned his neck to look up the stairs. “There’s a second floor?” he asked quietly as he looked around the tiny space. “Is it bigger up there?”

  The corner of Will’s mouth moved upward. He had never deceived himself. He knew how small his apartment was. But with Ellis Haywood and Kevin Lamont standing in the middle of it, it was almost comical.

  “Nope. It’s actually smaller. Let me give you the tour.” Will stood beside them and showed them around the entire apartment, just by pointing. “That’s my bedroom, and there’s a little bathroom in there. That’s Sam’s room, and then there’s another bathroom.”

  “Two bathrooms?” Kevin asked, and he actually managed to sound like he was impressed. “Not a lot of places have two bathrooms.”

  “What can I say? We live in the lap of luxury here in Morningside Heights.”

  “Harlem,” Ellis muttered. Kevin elbowed him, so he added, “But it’s nice, man. Real nice.”

  Will laughed and continued the tour. “If you want to come upstairs—”

  “I’m not sure I can come upstairs,” Ellis stated, not at all hyperbolically, as he turned sideways to squeeze up the stairway. Meanwhile, Kevin was bent over, practically at the waist, to avoid hitting his head.

  Ignoring them, Will continued the tour. It was all simple. Efficient. No frills. It had been a great bachelor pad but a somewhat impractical habitat for an adult man in a serious relationship. For a time, Cadie had made an effort to act as if she found the apartment charming, but before long they were both finding fewer reasons to spend time there.

  “In here is the living room,” he said, leading them to the final room with somewhat lower spirits, thanks to his Cadie-centric thoughts. “This is my roommate, Sam.”

  Sam appeared to brush crumbs off of his lap onto the floor as he grabbed the remote to mute the television, then he looked toward the guests and his eyes flew open wide.

  “Sam, this is—”

  “Kevin Lamont and Ellis Haywood,” Sam completed the introduction himself. He jumped up from the couch and wiped his hands on the side of his jeans before putting his hand out for them to shake. “You’re Kevin Lamont and Ellis Haywood. In my apartment.”

  Kevin and Ellis offered pleasantries while only thinly veiling their confusion as they continued to look around the undeniably party-free apartment.

  “I thought you were having a party tonight,” Will said, ever so slightly worried that he was going to have to snap his fingers in front of his roommate’s eyes in order to get him to stop staring at the giant sports heroes in their living room. At least what Will lacked in abdominal muscles he made up for in work friends. But realization hit, and snapping fingers weren’t necessary.

  “Hang on,” Sam said, turning his attention to Will. “You brought Kevin Lamont and Ellis Haywood here for my party?”

  “You really don’t have to say our full names every time, man,” Ellis insisted.

  “I did,” Will replied after a quick smile in Ellis’s direction, to let him know he had heard his aside. “Yet there is no party.”

  “Nope. No party.” Sam sighed and seemingly lost interest in the famous guests in an instant. He collapsed onto the couch and stared intently at the television as if he couldn’t bear the thought of missing a moment—despite the fact that it was still muted.

  “So, um . . .” Will began hesitantly. “What’s up? Decide the journey isn’t worth celebrating after all?” Ellis kicked the sole of his shoe. Will looked up at him and silently mouthed “What?”

  Ellis shook his head and rolled his eyes at Will before stepping past him and joining Sam on the couch. “Will said you had a big audition today, man. How’d it go?”

  Sam finally stopped staring at the silent television and craned his neck to look up at Ellis. “You’re Ellis Haywood,” he said declaratively, as if there were nothing else to say.

  “I’m aware,” Ellis responded.

  “You actually care how my audition went?”

  Ellis shrugged and said, “It seems that I do.”

  Sam took a deep breath. “That’s very nice of you.”

  I’m supposed to be the nice one, Will thought to himself as he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a soda, and silently offered one to everyone else in the room. Ellis raised his hand and Will tossed a can, which was easily caught.

  “This audition was supposed to be a big deal. My agent told me she pulled a lot of strings to get me in and cashed in a lot of favors, and that it would really make my career if I got the job. So I get there, and the role is ‘Guy in Elevator.’ Seriously. One line. That was supposed to be my big break?”

  “Everybody has to start somewhere,” Will said.

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. But I didn’t even get the part. I’m just fed up. When am I ever going to get my chance? I’m not even asking to be a big movie star, I just really want to break into television. I like the security of having work to go to every day for a long time. A solid income. Does tha
t make sense?”

  “It does,” Kevin deadpanned. “That is, in fact, the reason most people have regular jobs.”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders and offered up a sad smile. “Ah well. I guess we all have work problems.” He gestured toward Will and said, “I’m sure you run into stuff at the lab.” All of a sudden he sat up a little straighter and said, “So how do you guys know each other?”

  Ellis began to answer. “We work—”

  “Um . . . in the same building,” Will interjected. He’d confess soon enough that he had a much cooler job than what Sam believed, but for Sam’s sake, he knew it wasn’t the right moment. “So, Sam, let me ask you a question. As an actor, do you watch a lot of movies?”

  “I watch every movie,” he replied with a laugh.

  “Even romantic movies?”

  Sam turned his head to first look at Ellis, and then Kevin, before turning back to Will with an expression that said, “You aren’t really going to make me answer that, are you?”

  Will smiled. “Kevin lives in a houseful of women, and Ellis is the most romance-obsessed person I’ve ever met in my life. You can speak freely.”

  His roommate cleared his throat and answered, “Yeah. I watch everything.”

  “Good,” Will stated as he pulled Darby’s list from his back pocket. “I need your help.”

  14

  Three Weeks, Seven CDs, and a Billion Tic Tacs Later

  Morning, Cadie,” I was greeted by Helene in Human Resources as I made my way through The Bench’s foyer. “About time you show up.”

  I took a quick glance down at my watch. “Did I forget a meeting?” It was 7:20. Surely I hadn’t already missed a meeting by 7:20, right?

  She smiled, and I detected a hint of fun and joviality in her eyes—which made no sense, considering Helene was the one who had sent out the memo that Casual Friday only applied to those in the office outside of the normal 8:00 to 6:00 work hours.

  “Morning, Cadie!” Pam from accounting’s singsong words assaulted me as she passed. “I was starting to think you’d never get here.”